1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a DC-coupled optical data link utilizing differential transmission and, more particularly, to a system which utilizes an array of paired transmitting devices and an array of paired receiving devices to achieve communication, with one device of each pair dedicated to transmission of a logic "0" and the other dedicated to transmission of a logic "1".
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is a growing need to be able to optically interconnect backplanes of computers and communication equipment over relatively short distances (10-100 meters, for example). Current applications consist primarily of massive parallel data interfaces (typically 32-64 lines) with parallel clocking rates (typically 20-50 MHz). The aggregate data bandwidth, therefore, is within the range of 0.5-4.0 Gb/s. Although there exist many optical systems which are capable of handling this bandwidth with a single fiber interconnection, the cost, size, complexity and power requirements of such interconnections are considered to be overwhelming for many low cost applications.